The way you said I love you
by quokka
Summary: Tiva drabbles, inspired by a prompt on tumblr (35 ways you said "I love you."). Every drabble will be stand-alone, so I'm posting this as completed.
1. A sunny Tuesday afternoon

The opportunity presented itself far too little, their jobs usually demanding far too much, but every once in a while, Gibbs would send his team home early. The first time it had happened after they had become partners in more than a professional way, Tony had insisted that these stolen moments as he liked to call them, would be theirs and theirs alone. No meeting up with friends, no grocery shopping and certainly no doing laundry.

On cold or rainy days, they would stay cooped up inside, watching a movie, talking about everything or nothing, languidly running their hands all over each other, hardly ever straying more than an inch from the other for more than five minutes.

On the nicer days, they would venture out in the world, usually with no preset destination, simply enjoying each other's company, holding hands and seeing where their feet would take them. Which is how they had ended up on a park bench, a mile from her place, watching the ducks in the pond, on a pleasantly warm and sunny Tuesday afternoon.

Tony's head was in her lap, his face relaxed and turned towards the water, a small smile on his lips, blinking slowly as her fingers ran through his hair over and over again. If anyone dared to comment, she'd blame her uncharacteristic public display of affection on the way the late sunlight seemed to be glowing in his hair, making it look softer than it should be. Any good investigator would check the facts, instead of making assumptions based on appearances and accepting them as truth. She was only doing what she'd been trained to do.

He gave a sigh of contentment and she couldn't help the corners of her mouth from moving upwards even further.

"I love you," he murmured, and her heart skipped a beat.

For the first time in ten minutes she briefly glanced away from his face to look at the pond, trying to reign in her emotions.

"Should I be jealous of any duck in particular," she teased, noticing his eyes were still staring straight ahead at the flock of birds.

He chuckled lowly, and the sound and sensation, made her stomach flutter. "Well," he drawled, turning his head to face her. "There's that pretty little thing with the white spot on her neck next to the rose bush, but I think she's ignoring me."

"Her loss," Ziva said, lacing her fingers with his. "Perhaps leaving with another woman will make her jealous," she suggested teasingly.

He brought their joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "If I weren't already taken, you'd make an excellent wingman, Ziva," he said, standing up and pulling her with him.

She briefly considered asking him what a wingman was and what it had to do with ducks and relationships, but decided to let it slide when he placed his warm lips on her left temple and guided her in the direction of her apartment.

On rare, slow days like these, she couldn't help but feel loved, and she would damn well make sure he felt the same way before the sun went down.

* * *

A/N: Thank you every single one of you for reading. I love getting feedback, in any which way I can, it's immensely appreciated, so don't be shy.


	2. When baking chocolate chip cookies

"Tony, get out of the kitchen," Ziva admonished as she finally had enough of him _helping_ her bake cookies.

So far, Tony had managed to accidentally dump a whole package of sugar in the mixing bowl—measuring cups are for losers, he'd said—dropped not one, but two eggs on the floor—I don't care how good you were at juggling when you were 10, you're clearly bad at it now—and almost poked her eye out with a wooden spoon.

He sidled up next to her, trademark DiNozzo smile in place, and tucked a stray curl behind her ear.

"And get out of my hair, you're getting flour in it," she said, slightly exasperated, remembering what a pain her little sister had been in the kitchen what felt like a lifetime ago. She turned her head to look at him—maybe she was being a bit harsh—noticed that his trademark smile had been replaced with his trademark puppy dog eyes, and rolled her eyes at him before going back to mixing the ingredients with a spoon.

When she reached for the bag of chocolate chips, her hand collided with Tony's, knocking over the bag and spilling the contents all over the kitchen island. Her head whirled in his direction just in time to see him pop a handful of chocolate chips in his mouth before his eyes went wide, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Those are not candy," she said, trying hard to keep her voice neutral.

"Of course they are," he countered. "They're like dark chocolate M&M's without the sugar coating." He looked her up and down and grinned. "They're sort of like you, come to think of it." He popped another one in his mouth. "A little bit bitter, but they taste so good when they melt in my mouth."

Ziva stared at his mouth a moment too long and averted her gaze when his tongue peeked out to lick his lips. Sometimes she really hated how easily he could get to her these days. So she busied her hands instead, adding plenty of the spilled chocolate to the mixing bowl in front of her, in an effort to distract herself.

"I thought you were supposed to add love as an ingredient when you're cooking. We don't want the whole team to find out tomorrow how angry you were while baking these cookies," he said mock-seriously.

Ziva huffed.

"Or, are you more frustrated than angry?" he murmured, leaning in close enough for his breath to tickle her ear.

She faced him, noses almost touching, her gaze flitting to his lips before resting on his eyes.

"Obviously, I am frustrated, Tony," she said seductively. "Anybody would be frustrated trying to get any work done with a bored five-year-old around." The deadpan tone was accompanied by a pinch in his side.

Tony let out a melodramatic yelp and pouted. When Ziva looked at him pointedly, he dropped the act. She assumed it wouldn't last long, but she would take what she could get until the cookies were in the oven.

Taking a teaspoon out of the drawer, she placed small mounds of batter on the baking trays. From the corner of her eye she saw Tony's hand stray towards the mixing bowl and she swatted at it.

When she was nearly done filling the trays, she suddenly felt one of his hands glide under the hem of her shirt, his fingers lightly caressing the small of her back. The pleasant distraction slowed her reactions enough for Tony to almost bring the discarded wooden spoon full of raw cookie dough up to his mouth.

"You're not leaving me alone until you have licked every utensil clean of batter, are you?" Ziva questioned testily.

"Well, I'm not leaving until I've licked something," Tony said lowly and winked.

She let out a sigh of frustration. "I was wrong earlier. You're not a bored five-year-old; you're a horny fifteen-year-old."

The comment only made his grin grow wider. Ziva shook her head, but couldn't prevent the corners of her mouth from twitching as she placed the trays in the oven. She washed and dried her hands, then leaned back against the sink to stare at him.

Tony shrugged lightly and said, "I love you." As if that explained the tornado that seemed to have swept through the kitchen.

Ziva closed the distance between them. "If you truly love me…" Her fingers curled around the front of his shirt. "You will never help me bake cookies again," she continued and pulled him closer to place her lips on his.

* * *

A/N: I've been awake for +23 hours, so I probably shouldn't have posted this until another round of editing after getting some sleep, but, eh. In case you're wondering, and I know you weren't, I was eating dark chocolate chips while writing this—I'm Belgian, there's a chance I'll die if I don't eat chocolate (probably not, but why risk it).

I like feedback as much as dark chocolate.


	3. When I Am Dead

_nonononoooo, this is not happening, no, no dammit Tony, not like this, not now, not ever, not before me, just, don't_

Ziva's mind raced as fast as her legs raced to bring her closer to her fallen partner. She grabbed her phone and speed-dialed Gibbs, shouting, through labored breaths, to call an ambulance, bring Ducky, Tony's down.

She hadn't realized how far they had strayed from each other, searching the open field for any shred of evidence, until she had heard a loud crack, turned around and saw Tony go down. It took three heartbeats before it registered what had happened and then she was running, her lungs and every muscle in her body screaming for her to slow down, her mind screaming to speed up.

 _hold on Tony, almost there, just a few more feet, don't you dare die on me_

Ziva fell to her knees, hard, next to the still body of her best friend. Her fingers checked for a pulse on his neck as she hovered her cheek above his mouth to check for breathing, and found neither. She started CPR on instinct and couldn't tear her eyes away from his lifeless face, barely conscious that the stream of thoughts racing through her mind was now pouring from her mouth.

Begging _._

Pleading _._

 _wake up_

 _come back_

 _I love you_

When she heard herself utter the words she had sworn she never would, never again, panic gripped her heart. _This was not fair. She had never told him when he was alive. He was not supposed to die_. But she repeated them anyway, like a mantra, they couldn't hurt him anymore; he was already dead.

Minutes passed before she faintly heard the roaring of an engine in the distance, and the lifeless body beneath her hands finally came back to life, a final, whispered 'I love you' falling from her lips.

She knew he was not out of the fields–or was it woods, they're in a field, it does not matter, she can ask him later—but he was breathing, and his heart started beating again, and so did hers, and Ducky was here now—Ducky will know what to do—but then Tony opened his eyes, and he looked at her, confused, and she almost choked on a sob threatening to come out, so she turned away, reigning in her emotions, but when she turned back his eyes were closed, and she wasn't certain they had opened in the first place or whether that had been wishful thinking.

She was wound tight, ready to pounce, a ball of barely contained fury and pain that not even Ducky's reassuring words could soothe. She cussed and threatened the EMTs for the twenty long minutes it took for them to arrive in the middle of nowhere, flailing her arms wildly. It barely registered that McGee took two steps back, out of range, just in case.

When the ambulance approached, too slow to her liking, and finally came to a stop, Ziva felt herself deflate. Go numb. It wasn't until Tony's too still body disappeared out of sight, into the back of the ambulance, that she became aware of her surroundings again and saw Gibbs staring at her, clearly expecting an answer to a question she hadn't heard.

"We…were not done here," she told him, hoping her deductive reasoning was accurate enough and her answer vague enough. "Keep me updated," Ziva added curtly, then walked off. She desperately needed something to distract her from her emotions and everything that had just happened. Searching the remainder of the field would do just that.

* * *

By the time Ziva and McGee finished processing the rest of the crime scene, Ducky had already called to let them know Tony was going to be alright. Ziva agreed to McGee's plan to stop by the hospital, but instead of going in with McGee, she told him they should not leave the evidence in an unguarded truck; she would continue to the Navy Yard and he could drive back with Gibbs.

McGee looked confused, even offered to switch places, but it was always so easy for her to convince him to do what she wanted. So much easier than it ever was with Tony. Tony, who was somewhere in that sterile building, hooked up to beeping monitors…

She sped off with an abrupt goodbye and made it to the Navy Yard in record time.

Ziva was in the middle of a phone call, following up on a lead, when Gibbs and McGee walked in a couple of hours later. Gibbs stopped in front of her desk, tapping it twice to draw her attention. Reluctantly, she looked up at him, covering the speaker end of the phone with her hand.

"He wants to see you."

She nodded sharply, the blank expression on her face in stark contrast with the emotions once again running rampant inside of her, and continued the conversation over the phone, keenly aware of Gibbs staring at her longer than necessary before he headed down to the lab.

After a few more hours of plowing through evidence and leads, and a whirlwind of emotions every time her eyes landed on the empty desk in front of her, her phone chimed.

'bored stiff'

Ziva smiled and for a second forgot everything that had happened earlier.

'the nurses can help you with that,' she texted back.

'can't tell if that's a pun or just you being oblivious of English'

'whichever floats your ship'

The first time she had gotten that idiom wrong, Tony had told her it was a disgrace and wondered out loud how she ever managed to become a navy cop. She had purposely said it wrong ever since.

'thanks for clearing that up'

Ziva looked up smiling, half-expecting to see him grinning from across the bullpen, only to be confronted once more with an empty chair and that cold, tight feeling in her chest. So she doubled her focus on the case, barely registering Gibbs telling her to go home or to the hospital, before he walked out.

* * *

Long after hospital visiting hours were over, and she was the only one left in the bullpen, Ziva received another text.

'don't work yourself to death, I already did that today'

Ziva knew he meant it as a joke, but it felt as if someone had punched her in the gut, regardless. He expected a witty comeback, she knew that too, but the only thing her brain could conjure up was the image of his lifeless body in the middle of that field.

There was nothing witty about that.

So she ignored the text, or rather, she couldn't think of anything but that text while simultaneously refusing to answer it, for almost an hour. Which was when he texted her again.

'you okay?'

'fine'

He deserved better than a reply like that. But that was all she could give him. The adrenaline rush from that morning, the worry, and her insistence that she was fine and didn't need a break, had wiped her out.

Realizing it was past midnight, and that she was tired of staring at the empty desk in front of her, she decided it was time to go home. Any lead she could follow had gone dead. _No, there's that word again._

How she ended up in the dark hospital room twenty minutes later was a complete blur. But there she was, staring at her sleeping partner's face, lit only by a ray of moonlight, her emotions once again unchecked.

She couldn't remember the last time she had been this on edge. Maybe she never had been. Not like this. Because the last time she thought she'd lost him, when she saw his car explode on a screen that covered an entire wall, they hadn't been this close. In fact, he had been distant. Rude. Secretive. And in love with someone else.

 _Is he in love with you?_

 _Does it matter either way?_

Ziva froze, feeling caught thinking things she shouldn't be thinking, when Tony's eyelids opened barely enough to stare at her.

"I was afraid you were going to chicken out," he said, voice gravelly.

She felt panic slowly grip her, because nobody was supposed to know her that well. She had chickened out consciously. If she hadn't been so exhausted and confused she would be at home, in bed, sleeping, or rather, staring at the ceiling, making a mental list of all the reasons she needed to keep her distance from him, and promising herself to never speak of what she told him when his heart stopped beating, and hers had stopped with it.

"I should go, I did not want to wake you," she said quietly, eyes darting all over the room.

His warm hand on her arm, _it could've been dead-cold_ , stopped her from walking out the small room.

"Ziva," he said, and it sounded almost pleading to her ears. "Don't. Don't do this. Don't shut down. Don't shut me out."

She couldn't help but look him in the eye, before steeling herself and lying that she wasn't. It had come out as a croak, and she knew even a gullible five-year old wouldn't have believed her, let alone a trained investigator.

The hand on her arm suddenly felt like fire burning her, and she pulled it back, crossing both arms in front of her chest.

"Ziva."

She swallowed back the lump in her throat at his tone and blinked rapidly to keep the tears from spilling from her eyes. She was tired of feeling like this. Tired of feeling.

"You died," she said in a strangled voice.

 _What are you doing? You're supposed to bury your feelings._

Ziva closed her eyes and pursed her lips, trying desperately to get a grip, realizing she failed miserably when she haltingly added, "You're not supposed to die."

He reached for her, pulled her closer. She didn't have the energy to fight him anymore, so she sat down on the bed sideways, too close to him.

 _We're always too close._

"I'm a federal agent-"

"You were struck by lightning," Ziva bit back harshly. "On a clear day."

She hated how resentful she sounded. It wasn't something that could have been prevented. It wasn't his fault-

"It wasn't your fault, Ziva. There was nothing you could've done to prevent it from happening," he said softly.

For a second she hated how well Tony knew her. Part of her knew he was right, of course. But the part that had lost too many people she loved was harder to persuade.

His fingers drifted to the inside of her knee, drawing small circles there and drawing her out of her head. Grounding her.

Her eyes found his again, and maybe it was the moonlight, but she found it impossible to read him.

"You said you loved me…when I was dead."

His voice was thick with emotion, his fingers slid to the back of her knee. Anchoring her. Making sure she wouldn't drift away, the way he seemingly knew she wanted to.

"Why did you wait this long to tell me?"

His voice and eyes were pleading for her to tell the truth, like sledgehammers breaking through the last remains of the walls she had spent a lifetime building around herself.

"Because…everyone I have ever told…died." Ziva struggled to find the words. "And you…you were dead, and…I had not even told you."

She choked back another sob and looked away, biting her lips, willing back the tears and painful memories.

"You know, I'm convinced this is Eli's doing," he said, the joking tone confused her and drew her gaze back to his. Questioning.

"I bet he hates the fact that we've been getting closer so much…" His hand drifted from her knee to her cheek. "The fact that I'm in love with his daughter," he continued with confidence and a smile. "That he convinced Zeus to strike me down with a bolt of lightning."

She laughed quietly, wiping at a single tear that had fallen, and placed her hand over his. As much as his lack of seriousness at work frustrated her at times, he had gotten very good at perfecting the balance in their friendship. And right now, it made her love him even more.

"You died," she said solemnly.

"You brought me back," Tony replied with conviction.

He sat upright and his hand slid to the back of her head, fingers threading through the mass of curls, pulling her closer until their lips were mere inches apart.

"It'll take more than dying to keep me away from you, Ziva."

She let out a sob, her hands flying to his cheeks, and her lips finally touched his softly, slowly, once…twice, before barely pulling back and touching her forehead to his, her eyes screwed shut.

Tony pulled her back on the bed with him, snug against his side. Her hand slid down slowly to rest above his heart, relief once again washed over her as she felt the steady flutter beneath her palm.

"The nurse will kick me out," she said lightheartedly after a few minutes of silence.

"The nurse is a burly, 130-pound former marine…I'd like to see him try," he chuckled, kissed the top of her head and wished her sweet dreams while placing his hand over hers and pulling her even closer.

* * *

 **A/N** : See, I promised, happy ending.

This probably could've used a few more rounds of editing (the run-on and possibly confusing sentence was supposed to be that way, though), but given the week-long flare-up I've just been through, I'm not sure it would ever get published if I wait until tomorrow. Feel free to point out any and all mistakes.

As always, thank you for reading if you made it this far and the angst didn't kill you (if it didn't, I'll work harder next time). Any kind of feedback is greatly appreciated. This is the first time I've posted angst—I wrote myself into a corner with my unpublished angst fics, so they're basically in a coma—let me know how I did with this fic, and maybe I can figure out how to breathe some life into the comatose ones.


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